WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (26-0, 12 KOs) says he’ll take Sergey Kovalev (21-0-1, 19 KOs) to school and knock him out when they meet on August 17th at Cardiff’s Motorpoint Arena. “I can’t wait for this,” says Cleverly. “It’s the big one for me, beat Kovalev and I become a huge star on both sides of the Atlantic. I’ve picked the toughest fighter out there in Kovalev, the one that the other champions didn’t want to face, but I’ll be beat him with skill and heart. I can outbox him and people will be surprised when I’m going toe-to-toe with him and knock him out.

“At the moment I’m the prince of the 175lb division in my reign as WBO champion, but once I’ve seen off the other rulers in Bernard Hopkins (IBF), Adonis Stevenson (WBC) and Beibut Shumenov (WBA), I’ll be the monarch sitting on the throne of the division.”